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“I’ll grab us another drink, and then you can explain yourself a bit more,” she said.
“Wedding in fifteen minutes!” Tracey hollered.
At that moment, the pastor rushed out from between the trees with a Bible in-hand. His hair swept back, grey and black and wild, and when he reached them, he fell forward and gripped his knees as he gasped.
“I thought I was going to be late,” he said, mostly to Tracey.
Tracey laughed. “I don’t think we’re on any real timeline. These kids have the rest of their lives to be together.”
“Not kids anymore,” Anna interjected.
“All the better. I just married a young couple age twenty or twenty-one,” the pastor said. “They fought mid-way through the ceremony! I had to tell them to hold it till after.”
“Ha. What if you’d told them to rethink it?” Tracey asked.
“I don’t get paid enough for that,” the pastor said with a funny smile.
“Elise. Do you think I could speak to you? Just for a moment?” Wayne asked, his voice only a whisper in her ear.
Elise heaved a sigh. She didn’t want to dwell in reality anymore; she wanted whatever magic was in front of her. “Just for a sec.”
Wayne turned her around and walked her toward the edge of the water. When their toes very nearly skated across the trickling waves, he said, “I think you should know something.”
“It’s pretty obvious that you and Anna used to have a thing, Wayne. It’s not a big deal,” Elise said. “Although if it makes you that uncomfortable, we can head out.”
She gave him a challenging smile, but it didn’t seem to sway him.
“That’s obviously true, but it isn’t what I wanted to tell you.”
Elise’s stomach twisted itself into knots.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that... Tracey? The woman you met yesterday?”
“Yes. She’s terribly kind. She helped me pick out that pretty dress I wore last night. Do you remember it?”
Wayne sniffed and gave her a funny look. “Of course, I remember it. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it.”
Woah. What?
No man had ever spoken to Elise like that.
He’s into me. He liked my dress.
He’s helped me every step of the way today.
Is this one of the most romantic days of my life?
“If you’re right about all of your theories about your mother and Dean Swartz, then Tracey is your half-sister,” Wayne muttered.
Elise nearly dropped her glass of champagne.
“Tracey?”
Wayne nodded. “Yep. That’s Alex’s older sister.”
“No.” Elise yanked her head around to get a better look at her. The woman was a few years older than she was, not by much, with an infectious smile and a laugh to match. Elise saw nothing of the horrible man who’d sat in her BnB room that day and threatened her.
